Here are some recent reports on Ohio's Utica shale and drilling activities:

1. The Associated Press reported on Friday that officials in Ohio's Richland County want to create a regional fund to fight two proposed injection wells in Mansfield.

The state has approved permits for a Texas-based company to operate the two wells to handle drilling wastes.

Local governments are being asked to contribute thousands of dollars to the fund. The money could be used to fight wells and to fund litigation and research.

It is unclear how much money the Mansfield initiative wants to raise.

2. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may begin providing water to a village in northeastern Pennsylvania where a natural gas driller has been accused of contaminating wells with methane and possibly hazardous chemicals.

Homeowners in Dimock Township near Allentown have been without a reliable supply of clean water since Texas-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp., the firm blamed for polluting their aquifer, stopped making deliveries more than a month ago.

The EPA told the residents at that time that their water was safe but then backtracked as more sampling data came in that the agency said merited further investigation.

On Nov. 30, Cabot won permission from the state to stop daily deliveries of bulk and bottled water. Anti-drilling groups have been paying to have water delivered since then to about a dozen households.

The EPA has not made an official announcement on the water delivery.

Cabot has denied responsibility and says that Dimock's water meets federal drinking-water standards.